Elder Tyler Nielsen- Hawaii Honolulu Mission: Week 26: H-tech, Kahala ward, Honolulu take 3! Action!

Glamor shots from last Monday

Aloha kakou!

Transfer news!

Me and Elder Thompson will be staying in the Kahala ward doing H-tech for at least another 6 weeks! I'm honestly so excited! This promises more opportunities to make videos, make new friends, and get closer to the members in the ward! I've got some pretty ambitious video projects in the works, possibly a podcast, and loads more to accomplish in the mission.

We are getting new Assistants to the President. Previously they were Elder Horsley and Elder Anderson. They will soon be replaced by Elder Hawkes and Elder Clark. Elder Hawkes actually was in H-tech for a long time and trained Elder Thompson. This is especially good because we are trying to basically have a social media and technology surge in the mission. Some missionaries don't use Facebook like they should and don't know how to contact referred people to teach. These two things are what we've been working really hard on. But I can feel that we are going to take a massive swing in both fields. I want to get better at showing people cool ways to use social media for missionary work.

Other great news! We found 3 new people to teach! Les, Paul, and DJ. I went on exchanges with another Elder on Friday and we decided to go all the way back into a valley to go door-to-door tracking. We met a ton of cool people including a family from Nepal. We also went up into a Buddhist temple asking for water. They were really nice and their statue of Buddha was cool. We are scheduled to meet with them all next week. Very excited to see how they go!

I realize that I've never shared many details about our social media sites. Our Facebook page is Church of Jesus Christ in Hawaii and our Instagram is Christlives.hawaii. We made a video recently about a woman named Su AhNee. The video is called The Lei Maker. She tells a really inspiring story and showed everyone in h-tech (besides me) how to make Leis and Wili (pronounced Vili).

We have some kind of sad news about Barry. We met with him first on Tuesday and he said he wanted to give it up for a bit. He said that his brother didn't like members and he didn't want to hide the fact that he wanted to get baptized. We explained that it wouldn't be easy, but if he wanted to get baptized he would do it for himself not worrying what others thought. He really wants to get baptized I can tell, and he said he would talk to his brother. Then on Friday we met up again and Barry still doesn't know why his brother dislikes members of the church. We decided to teach him the Plan of Salvation and it surprised me how much he learned from that lesson.

Just today (Sunday) McCully ward had a baptism for a man named Fred Long. We invited Barry to it and he came! He also came to church! After the baptism Barry came up to me and said "Wow. He's really happy now that his sins are taken away." It was really interesting that he noticed that. There will be obstacles for him, but Barry is going places. Just you wait.

This week I celebrated my 6 official months as a missionary! The zone leaders took me and a few other missionaries that came into the mission with, went to a needlessly expensive steak place called Ruth's Chris. It's so good, but the bill was $5**. A lot. I thought that we were just going to Outback.

Today we taught a lesson about weaknesses and doing what the Lord asks from the book of Moses. The prophet Enoch says that the people hate him, he is slow of speech, and asks God why he should be made a prophet. God answers bluntly by simply stating the damning fate that will happen to people if they are not asked to repent. As soon as Enoch goes out, he speaks and the masses are leveled by his power. As a missionary, I know that I'm never guaranteed reward as soon as I go out, buy the Lord commands that we do so that we give people the opportunity to listen to us. It's based on this faith that miracles happen.

Well that's my take on this past week. It's been great! I'm SO stoked for the next 6 weeks! 1/4 of my mission has gone by so fast and that's not changing soon. Thanks everyone for the support and if you ever have any questions about the gospel, missionary work, about Hawaiian life or anything please let me know.

Hope you all have a great week! See you next Monday!

Love, Elder Nielsen

Pictures